The Ministry of Justice is inviting suggestions on data that might be opened up – but the list of 43 datasets also provides lot of ideas for Freedom of Information requests. Let us know if you do anything with them!
Paul Cheston is the last specialist court reporter for newspapers in the UK. Court reporting may be a dying trade, but Cheston feels that this leaves gaps in the market for investigators to fill.
This year at the CIJ Summer School, he offered a practical guide to court reporting which we have summarised below…
Cheston’s reasons for the importance of court reporting and why he enjoys the craft include: Continue reading
At a recent Birmingham Datablog meetup we hosted probation data analyst Jason Davies, who very generously spent time highlighting the mistakes that journalists should avoid in reporting the justice system, and useful resources for finding both data and context on crime and justice.
Jason began by making an important distinction between crime data and justice data. Crime data is typically handled by individual police forces and the Home Office.
Once someone is charged, however, they enter the justice system. Information about what happens next – in the courts, the prisons, community service and on probation – is handled by the Ministry of Justice and other related bodies. Continue reading